Should "The Silver Hand" artifact been Ret?

[Toppy]

I dont know about you guys, but to me when I think Paladin, I think smiting the ever loving hell out of dudes with a big giant mace to the face. Especially Warcraft Paladin, who have been all about face macery ever since WC2, with one of the most iconic weapons for vanilla paladins being the mace so many have fond memories of getting in a early level questline taking them all the way to Forsaken territory (Verigan's Fist).

Don't get me wrong. Ashbringer is great. But that Silver Hand makes me jealous. And I'll certainly be mogging my ashbringer into something that doesnt have a giant lordaeron symbol on it seeing as my Paladin is a Tauren. I'd killed for the ability to just mog one artifact into another, as nothing would be more satisfying than finally getting an actual big ass mace in the style of Warcraft 3: something blizz hasnt given us since vanilla.

[Chaosinciter]

Well Uther was a Holy Paladin which is what they are aiming for with Holy's artifact weapon, and honestly Ashbringer is pretty much the most iconic paladin weapon that Ret has been clamoring for since who knows how long (still remember the panic when Corrupted Ashbringer was obtained from Naxx, people lost their damn minds), And we're finally getting it. I know I wouldn't want any other weapon in it's place, let alone The Silver Hand (not that it has a bad model or anything but between the two there isn't really much competition between the two for which one fits better least imo.)

[Deleted]

I'll just transmog my artifact into Sulfuras the extinguished hand for another expansion.

Fits my transmog set I stole from Zephyros quite well, I changed a few pieces and now its my favorite.

[Teleros]

[/CENTER]

Warcraft 3 paladins are basically Legion-style Holy paladins though. Bubble, Devotion Aura, mass resurrection (albeit instant, in-combat mass resurrection :P ) and an instant heal that did half damage to undead. Not exactly Ret now :P .

Personally, I'd love to see Holy at least being given the option via talents of going into a healing-through-DPS build like Discipline priests have (from what I've seen they're not really there ATM though), but yeah... the Silver Hand is definitely more fitting for them than Rets.

[Inquisit]

Ashbringer is cool and as people said, Uther is a Holy paladin. Which is lame since all current paladin class fantasy is based on him (or really influenced by him). Therefore, Retribution does not currently feel like retribution that much.

[Deleted]

These puppies exist, and I want them.



OT: I really like the Ashbringer, it's super badass, I just wish that the mini Ashbringers we throw at our enemies would be removed, I think it looks dumb, also I would love if the Blade of Justice ability was the Ashbringer coming out of the ground, that would be really neat.

[Inquisit]

I would love Wake of the Ashes to actually be us slamming Ashbringer on the ground as the tooltip says... And the missile Ashbringers to go away. :P

[Tijuana]

I'll just transmog my artifact into Sulfuras the extinguished hand for another expansion.

Fits my transmog set I stole from Zephyros quite well, I changed a few pieces and now its my favorite.

I'm not feeling the blue pants with that mog. Why did you go there? Just curious...

[Cien]

I'll just transmog my artifact into Sulfuras the extinguished hand for another expansion.

Fits my transmog set I stole from Zephyros quite well, I changed a few pieces and now its my favorite.

i think you need to give it back and try again :/

OT: no no no! ashbringer all the way for ret <3

[Schattenlied]

Well Uther was a Holy Paladin

No, he wasn't, he was simply "A Paladin", specializations are a game mechanic of WoW, and do not exist in lore... He did a lot of melee fighting, and even used a sword and shield once or twice.. He is as much of a "Ret" Paladin as he is "Holy"...


Many see Alexandros as the iconic Ret Paladin, and yet they only do it because of the Ashbringer, despite all paladins of the era heavily fighting in melee - don't think for a moment that the Ashbringer wouldn't have been given to Uther if he wasn't dead.

[Chaosinciter]

No, he wasn't, he was simply "A Paladin", specializations are a game mechanic of WoW, and do not exist in lore... He did a lot of melee fighting, and even used a sword and shield once or twice.. He is as much of a "Ret" Paladin as he is "Holy"...


Many see Alexandros as the iconic Ret Paladin, and yet they only do it because of the Ashbringer, despite all paladins of the era heavily fighting in melee - don't think for a moment that the Ashbringer wouldn't have been given to Uther if he wasn't dead.

Oh absolutely, if Uther was still alive he'd definitely of gotten Ashbringer, and pretty much i just always associate Uther with the HoTS Uther, kind of a Battle Healer which fits in the Holy archtype (which they are aiming for in Legion) for game reasonings while Paladin in general he's more on the supportive side of things but did get in the thick of things.

- - - Updated - - -

These puppies exist, and I want them.



OT: I really like the Ashbringer, it's super badass, I just wish that the mini Ashbringers we throw at our enemies would be removed, I think it looks dumb, also I would love if the Blade of Justice ability was the Ashbringer coming out of the ground, that would be really neat.

The mini-ashbringers were removed already when they reworked the base artifact talent to being the frontal ground smash and the made Ashes to Ashes be the upgrade that makes it generate 5 HP and deal radiant holy damage over time to targets hit and slow them.

[Schattenlied]

I would also like to point out that The Silver Hand is not Uther's Warhammer (that would be "The Hammer of the Lightbringer")... The Silver Hand is Tyr's (Titan Keeper, kin to Loken, Thorim, etc.) Warhammer, The Order of the Silver Hand was named after it in honor of Tyr... We, the player, are the first person to wield The Silver Hand since Tyr, it has never met mortal hands before...

So, all this discussion of Uther is 100% irrelevant to the role of the artifact.

[Hottage]

Whether The Silver Hand would be a good Retribution artifact isn't the question, it's which evokes an emotion of the Retribution playstyle more.
Given it's history with Tirion I have to say Ashbringer easily beats The Silver Hand.

[Teleros]

No, he wasn't, he was simply "A Paladin", specializations are a game mechanic of WoW, and do not exist in lore...

Inasmuch as I doubt Mograine called himself a Ret, you're right. Inasmuch as people do actually specialise, no.

Uther was an ex-priest who, per Warcraft 3 for example, liked to go around using defensive / healing spells a ton.

He did a lot of melee fighting, and even used a sword and shield once or twice.. He is as much of a "Ret" Paladin as he is "Holy"...

Blizzard's trying to get back to the image of Uther from Warcraft 3 by encouraging Holy paladins to hang around in melee you realise. Uther using a shield must be from the books (been a while and I CBA to check right now).

Many see Alexandros as the iconic Ret Paladin, and yet they only do it because of the Ashbringer, despite all paladins of the era heavily fighting in melee - don't think for a moment that the Ashbringer wouldn't have been given to Uther if he wasn't dead.

Let's see...

1. Anduin Lothar fought in melee with a two-handed weapon.
2. Prot and Fury warriors can use two-handed weapons.
3. Therefore Lothar was a Prot warrior. Or maybe Fury. Definitely not the single 2H DPS spec though. Definitely not.

Do you see the problem? Yes, Uther fought in melee. Yes, he also carried a big hammer. But no, he was not a Ret paladin. He cautioned Arthas against seeking revenge etc over the Cult of the Damned's actions in Lordaeron, and his abilities have always been those of a support hero or healer, which Ret is not.

Holy Light: heals the target for X or deals 1/2 X damage to a target undead
Devotion Aura: allies within range get +X armour
Divine Shield: you become immune to all damage for a long (long) time
Mass Resurrection: raises up to 6 dead non-hero allies from the dead

How does that compare in any way, shape or form to the killing abilities of Mograine, who canonically waded into about a thousand of Kel'thuzad's undead and blew them all up?

IMHO, the problem at least as far as WoW is concerned can be traced back to vanilla WoW, when paladins were encouraged to (a) go Holy and (b) stack as much Int and crit as possible, which generally meant 1H + shield rather than 2H, simply because it was more efficient for healing purposes (ie, more stats & better itemisation etc). Given things like Seal of Righteousness and the rest (which did more damage based on your weapon speed, and was the DPS seal for Holy unless they put 11pts into Ret for Seal of Command), I think Blizz were expecting something more like the Warcraft 3 paladin, ie Uther (which - oh look - is what they're trying to get people to be like in Legion).

Point is, Uther = Healadin.

I would also like to point out that The Silver Hand is not Uther's Warhammer (that would be "The Hammer of the Lightbringer")... The Silver Hand is Tyr's Warhammer, The Order of the Silver Hand was named after it in honor of Tyr.

Bit irrelevant, no?

= + =

Can you imagine the uproar if it wasn't Ashbringer?

I'd be fine with not having Ashbringer, at least so long as Tirion kept it (and lived, obviously). Could give Ret the Silver Hand and have Holy go off on a quest to get the Hammer of the Lightbringer, Uther's old 2H mace.

Having the Ashbringer as an NPC weapon means it won't ever be diminished as an awesome weapon in the eyes of players, whereas if literally every single Ret paladin has one it's... well nothing special, basically.

[Schattenlied]

Uther was an ex-priest who, per Warcraft 3 for example, liked to go around using defensive / healing spells a ton.

Uther was a Knight and only ever an apprentice Cleric... Point mostly being, he was a Knight (meaning a veteran melee combatant) before he was fully trained in the use of the Light.

Bit irrelevant, no?

No, it's entirely relevant to the thread's current conversation... People brought up Uther in this thread because they assume, because of it's name, that The Silver Hand is Uther's Warhammer when that is entirely false, I am correcting that misconception.

[Teleros]

Yeah, but it rarely is "I'd be fine..." - the uproar would still happen.

Would it? I'm not sure it would, if we assume that Blizzard's position was always "you get to wield the Silver Hand" rather than "we changed our mind: no Ashbringer, you get the Silver Hand instead". There'd be some grumbling about wielding the Ashbringer, but uproar?

(For what it's worth, I wouldn't have had players wield the Ashbringer, Doomhammer or Sceptre of Sargeras. These are IMHO NPC-only weapons given the lore involved)

= + =

Uther was a Knight and only ever an apprentice Cleric... Point mostly being, he was a Knight (meaning a veteran melee combatant) before he was fully trained in the use of the Light.

He was a priest / cleric / what-have-you under Archbishop Alonsus Faol, he was never a knight. That comes from a single line in the non-canon RPG books.

From the Warcraft 2 manual:

"Apprenticed to the aged Archbishop Alonsus Faol who was the leader of the Holy Order of Northshire Clerics... Uther Lightbringer learned first hand that faith alone would not defeat the terrible Horde. Many of the CLerics were slain during the First War... Knowing that this war with the unholy Orcs could not end soon, Uther discerned that the Archbishop's new Order must be able to defend the people as well as heal them. Thus, young Uther took up sword and shield and issued the call to the most pious amongst the Knights of Lordaeron."

In other words, he was a priest or priest-in-training who learnt to wield weapons after Azeroth (that is, Stormwind) was destroyed by the rcs.

Non-canonical status of the RPG books: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...1372142?page=1
See first question.

No, it's entirely relevant to the thread's current conversation... People brought up Uther in this thread because they assume, because of it's name, that The Silver Hand is Uther's Warhammer when that is entirely false, I am correcting that misconception.

Doesn't seem relevant to whether or not Ret paladins should get the Silver Hand though.

[Schattenlied]

Doesn't seem relevant to whether or not Ret paladins should get the Silver Hand though.

Again, it is, because many people are arguing that it should be a Holy weapon because of Uther when in fact Uther has nothing to do with the weapon at all, hence, again, the entire reason for that post.

[Teleros]

Again, it is, because many people are arguing that it should be a Holy weapon because of Uther when in fact Uther has nothing to do with the weapon at all, hence, again, the entire reason for that post.

Not in this thread at least :P .

[Chaosinciter]

Again, it is, because many people are arguing that it should be a Holy weapon because of Uther when in fact Uther has nothing to do with the weapon at all, hence, again, the entire reason for that post.

Uther wasn't brought up in the argumentative fashion until your initial reply to me, which was a bit of correcting information but the majority of my post was as a parallel draw from how they have portrayed Uther (A 2h battle healer who supports his allies first and foremost while doing a bit of damage) and what they are aiming to make Holy Paladins into going forward to Legion then I finished up my thoughts on the matter. No one even mentioned Uther's weapon until you brought it up or the lore behind The Silver Hand either.

[Eon Drache]

Uther wasn't brought up in the argumentative fashion until your initial reply to me, which was a bit of correcting information but the majority of my post was as a parallel draw from how they have portrayed Uther (A 2h battle healer who supports his allies first and foremost while doing a bit of damage) and what they are aiming to make Holy Paladins into going forward to Legion then I finished up my thoughts on the matter. No one even mentioned Uther's weapon until you brought it up or the lore behind The Silver Hand either.

I agree with Schattenlied. Seems to me everyone is talking about Uther because they believe the weapon in question belonged to Uther. Uther is a great paladin but I've no idea why he is in the discussion at all. We should be talking about what kind of keeper Tyr was. A lot of paladins, retribution or holy, use large warhammers in lore, artwork and in-game. So whether or not Uther would wield this one really has no place in the discussion in my mind.